End Government Schools

Opinion - Reader Views - Role of Education

August 30, 2001

Regarding Richard Langford's Sunday "My Word": I taught math last year in a Volusia County high school and couldn't understand why chronically disruptive students never were removed. When I looked out a classroom window and saw administrators literally dragging "students" back to school -- and then heard complaints about crowded conditions -- something smelled fishy.

Here's the painful truth I learned:

First, "smaller classrooms" is doublespeak for more National Education Association union members.

Second, government school administrators don't want uncooperative delinquents to leave because schools are paid according to average attendance.

Finally, the "annual lament" of government-school apologists mentioned in Sunday's "My Word" is suspiciously similar to NASA's yearly announcement (strangely enough, right around funding time) that the agency is close to some scientific breakthrough about life in outer space.

The only solution is to end the government school system and make parents responsible for educating their own children.